Once again, my week has been cerrr-azy and blogging has been inconsistent at best.
Breakfast on Monday was just okay. I made baked pumpkin oatmeal…
but I left out the banana, on accident. It was still tasty, but it really needed that banana.
The highlight of breakfast was finishing off the jar of Barney Butter. This little guy was too small for oats in a jar, unless I ate 1/2 a serving of oats in a jar. So I thought hey, no use in saving it. I proceeded to clean out the jar with my finger at the table. Brad didn’t bat an eye. He is accustomed to my craze for nut butters. Table manners be damned.
Lunch was the other half of my roasted veggie pizza from Sunday night..eaten in the car, folded over for easy eating. Of course I was wearing a white shirt so you already know the rest of that story. I was on my way to a meeting and had just enough time to swoop into the ladies’ room and blot out the red stains on my shirt.
The real highlight of Monday was this bowl of goodness. Now, don’t be afraid. It may look alien to you, but this soup comes in peas. Split peas. I think Brad’s humor is staring to wear off on me, but even he wouldn’t find that funny.
Extra Thick and Creamy Split Pea Soup
2 cups green split peas
2 chopped carrots
2 chopped celery stalks
3/4 cups frozen green peas
10 cups of vegetable broth
2 garlic cloves
1 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. dried parsley
1 tsp. crushed red pepper
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
extra virgin olive oil (for sauteeing)
salt to taste (I used low sodium broth and 1 tsp. salt)
In a large pot, saute carrots, celery, and garlic in EVOO (spray it well with a Misto or use about 1/2 Tbsp.) Once vegetables start to soften, add broth, split peas, and green peas. Add herbs and spices. Bring to a bowl, then lower heat to medium and cook for about 30 minutes. Remove from heat and use immersion blender or food processor to blend soup.
I dug some all natural Earth Fare brand bacon out of the freezer, cooked it in a cast iron skillet, and crumbled it over the soup. Delicious.
This soup has made a reoccurring appearance in my lunch box for the past two days…
Breakfast was a bit odd yesterday morning.
I tried the Spirulina unsweetened vanilla protein powder in my smoothie-in-a-bowl. It was meh, okay. It took quite a bit of tinkering with the Stevia to figure out how to get it sweet without being overly so.
Dinner from last night went completely undocumented because I felt so incredibly blah. I ran 4.24 miles with Brad in about 41:14 when I got home and wanted to stop and walk the whole time. My stomach had been killing me the whole day and running just pissed it off. If it wasn’t completely dark, I would have walked, but I knew Brad wouldn’t have let me walk alone and would have stopped as well, so I pushed onward. I spent the rest of the night on the couch with a cup of tea. At 9 pm, I finally decided I could eat something and had a bowl of cereal.
I woke up feeling mostly better this morning. Breakfast this morning was perfect, but it was oatmeal, so how could it be anything but?
1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup almond milk
pinch of salt
frozen blueberries
1/2 banana
strawberry jam
almond butter
Notice anything missing here?
Since Sunday I have been trying to avoid dairy. Why you ask?
A weird phenomenon has been occurring on my face for the past month. I never had acne as a teenager and now at 27, I’m getting blemishes on a daily basis. It sucks and is something I am definitely not used to. I’ve read about how dairy can promote acne and I also know that my mom developed a similar issue in her late 20’s/early 30’s (?). She has also had issues with dairy for some time (a sensitivity, not an intolerance). I myself have no signs of dairy sensitivity, but in an effort to connect the dots and experiment with how my eating habits may affect my body, I am trying a no-dairy diet for the next week or two.
The only dairy I have had has been in the form of dark chocolate, which contains a very small amount. In the past three days, I’ve noticed some modest improvement, but I don’t want to jump to any huge conclusions based on a couple of days.
Avoiding dairy hasn’t been a big deal for me yet. I’ve read that goat cheese doesn’t have the tendency to promote acne as cow’s milk cheese does. So, if I find that dairy avoidance works, I might bring back the goat dairy for a trial run.
It’s really weird and incredibly interesting that our bodies continue to change (not just age) as time passes. I’m not happy about this whole diet shift at the moment, but I just want to figure out how to get the acne issue under control. I can live without dairy, especially if it means my skin returns to it’s old self.